The Adventures of The Caleb

A comment about wild harvesting/foraging

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time you know I’m an avid sustainable forager. Well there is something I need to bring up. I’m cross posting this from another site I just posted on. So this is just copy and pasted

Oh before I dart to go to the grocery store allow me to add something. It’s something I need to remember myself. Wild harvesting is fun and provides a highly nutritious addition to your meals but you still have to be careful for many reasons. Let me tell you one of those reasons.

I’m mucking around Todd George park gathering the cattail shoots. There is a fallen tree in my path so I just hop over the large trunk and land about 2 1/2’ to 3’ away from a water moccasin  (ironically that link says they aren’t this far north. I wish). The snake took off into the water and I leapt back over the fallen tree. No harm done to either of us but that could have been bad and I’m glad for the reminder.

Oh my gosh - Warning forager excitement about to come

I was sitting here talking to someone online about some of the stuff I’m excited to forage. Also e-mailed my favorite professional forager with a question about bitternut hickories when all of a sudden I realized something.  It’s spring! That means young cattail shoots coming up! I LOVE me some younger cattail shoots.

Dinner tonight

Wild greens and fresh herb salad which includes dandelion, clover, violet, garlic mustard (also highly invasive), henbit, spearmint, rosemary, thyme. Then I sprinkled a health dose of chia seeds on top and cut up an avocado and put on there. Created the dressing using fig molasses, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.

Also for dinner oven roasted garlic asparagus, steamed broccoli, and pan fried spicy onions and potatoes.

Shelling Acorns

Been shelling the acorns that I gathered in the fall. They are all finally dry. Doing a slower method of shelling them just to get a rhythmic meditation going.

Sadly the majority of the white acorns are not salvageable. They must have already been spoiling before I even started the drying process. That’s the problem with White Oaks. The fat content is higher so if you don’t get to them quickly they spoil very fast.

Anyway no where near halfway through yet but whatever is not salvageable as an edible will be turned into fill for the herb spiral. So no matter what it’s going to be used.

Along the same lines as the previous post

If any of you KCers that follow me that has an oak tree that dropped a bunch of acorns in your yard let me know. I’ll come gather them up. I’ve been driving around for about an hour checking neighborhoods and it looks like the crop was bad this year. Most of them aborted the acorns in an immature state.

Wild harvesting and a surprise

Went wild harvesting. Came out with a bag of stinging nettles, two bags of wood nettles (I really like these) and a small bag of black walnuts. Also came out covered in newly hatched deer ticks…

…

I hate ticks

…

Stupid me for not having tick repellent on.

So yeah

I may be doing an e-mail interview with a reporter on wild edibles. More so on black nightshade greens and berries.

Gardening - Involuntary crops and ghetto mulching

Had to do some major weeding today. So the hoe and I went out and worked and worked and worked. In some rows of my weeding I had to be extra careful because some “weeds” came up that wild foragers recognize as food. They weren’t really in the way of the other crops so I tried to save as many of them as possible. That alone is a great reason to understand wild edibles. You never know you might be pulling up something you may enjoy.

After all this work I decided to mulch with all the material I had been saving. You want a free or fairly free mulch that last for a while and eventually breaks down nicely in your garden? Well look no further then the paper sacks at your grocery store and the cardboard boxes (as long as they aren’t waxed) from your office. I almost had enough to mulch my whole garden but it’s really simple. All you do is tear it into the shapes that you need and lay it down. To keep it in place I would wait until the sun went down and then water the whole garden long enough so it soaks up some water. Paper is easier to deal with but if you aren’t careful will blow away. Paper also breaks down more quickly so depending on how often you go to the grocery store the cardboard may be more advantageous to you.

Now I’m going to go shower and pretend I’m dead.

So no pictures of my bounty tonight

Forgot that my camera needs batteries. But let’s talk for a second about today’s harvest.

I particularly like stinging nettle. Now stinging nettle has to be “processed” to make it edible. Processing it can be, drying, steaming, or boiling. I’m sure baking would too.  You eat the leafy green parts or you can make a tea out of it, and flavor wise well it’s a very “green” tasting veggie… Harvesting it is no big deal, the stings are uncomfortable but go away quickly enough.

Wood Nettle is a new creature for me. Wood nettle is like stinging nettle where it can sting you, but it’s sting is more painful and lasts a LOT longer. I’m not sure of the taste on it. Everything I’ve read is people prefer it over stinging. Now on wood nettle you can consume either the stalk and/or the leafy greens. It all has to be “processed” to make it edible. The stalk can be prepared much like asparagus and the leafs like stinging which both can be used in the place of spinach.

So why go after these cranky plants? One I like the flavor of at least one of them. Two they are HIGHLY nutritious. Even after being dried or cooked they maintain a high vitamin and mineral content.

Spring Wild Harvesting off to a good start

Went mushroom hunting… We haven’t had enough sun for any real mushrooms yet. But that did not stop me. In the trekking through muddy forests, barefoot of course, I came across LOTS of stinging nettle. Then after we moved to a different area I found wood nettle, which was a pleasant surprise since wood nettle isn’t too be expected for another month. Tonight we will be having some of both. I’ll have pictures of the bounty collected after we get back from the hardware store. I need a hoe.